What Does Grand Vin De Bordeaux Actually Mean?

We’ve all done it. We’ve walked into supermarkets or wine shops and picked up bottles of wine and been completely flummoxed by the label staring back at us. We all cling to the first bit of information that we can recognise or, in many cases, understand. Wines from Bordeaux luckily have the term “Grand Vin De Bordeaux” on them. But is it so lucky?

Well annoyingly enough, no it isn’t. If you remember from last week’s chat about AOCs, to put AOC on the label is a stamp of quality. The wine in the bottle has passed rigorous quality checks in order to be part of that AOC. It’s a mark of quality.

Grand Vin De Bordeaux isn’t. It’s not a registered term. Anyone who makes wine within the Bordeaux region can stick it on their label.

Ok, so it’s not a term that denotes quality. Does it then denote that the wine is no good? Well gain, no! Problem is that punters like us demand to see those words on the label when we go into a shop. So the great and the good, as well as the bad and the ugly of wine producers in Bordeaux put it on their labels.

The best advice is clearly to just ignore those words. They don’t mean anything (other than it was made in Bordeaux).

You want to know whether the wine is worth drinking? Best thing to do (obviously) is buy from us at 20h33, or to ask your friendly neighbourhood wine broker (little ol’ me)!

Hope that clears that up.

Enjoy!

Mike, Director of www.20h33.co.uk

©B.Kulik